Tag Archives: Street Art

Space Invaders: An Endangered Species

Space Invaders have become an endangered species in New York City. You can see the rectangular spaces where they once perched. Buildings they’ve called home have been renovated or replaced.

Worst of all, some of these Invaders have been destroyed, for no apparent purpose. For example, the Space Invader below once watched over Ludlow Street between Stanton and Rivington. Look at the state of him now:

Fortunately, a suspect has been photographed. As you can see, he had two accomplices who mainly stood as lookouts.

Love Revolution: Stencils are the Tip of the Iceberg

I saw a bit of stencil graffiti in Haifa, which at first looked like Mr. Spock’s hairdo. I could only read one word of the slogan beneath it: אהבה (ahava = love). The image is actually an open heart.

I’d see the same image repeated all over Haifa, and then again once I got down to Tel Aviv.

It was everywhere.

I began taking photos of heart image, and asked my second (or third?) cousin, whom I had only just met, what it was.She laughed and explained it to me: It’s part of Love Revolution, a movement to promote personal responsibility for peace and happiness.

If this seems goofy, it’s only because you’re not in the Middle East as you read it.

My cousin was laughing because she’s one of the artists who has been promoting the project.

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Well, not everyone is on the love train, obviously. Some of the Love Revolution stencils were defaced or altered (I can’t read what they’ve been changed to say), and some competing images and text have also been thrown up.

Space Invaders Are Everywhere

As you can see, CCTV cameras are completely useless at spotting Space Invaders.

I’ve found very few of Space Invader’s creations here in NYC, though found evidence of at least one having been stolen. The artist photographed the same Invader in 2000; the neighborhood has changed quite a bit

BLU Goes big on a Madrid building, using construction equipment to throw up a massive illustration depicting a circle of suited pickpockets. I heard that the mural is called “Stuffing Each Others’ Pockets”, which would imply that the suits are in a closed economic loop of another kind.